Gabrielle Wayman, president elect of the Junior League and grant writer for Kopernik Science Park, said she felt "exhausted" and "exuberant" Monday morning after receiving the news late Friday evening.

The Junior League is spearheading the project and helped the park win a $25,000 State Farm Neighborhood Assist Program grant in 2015 that also was awarded by public vote.

"To know that our community did it again, that they want this project so badly that they did it on a national scale is just mind blowing," Wayman said.

Kopernik taking the prize for the education category of the competition, which received more than 1,000 applications. The park will get 50 percent of the funding now and get the rest in January, Kopernik Executive Director Drew Deskur said.

"We’re so excited and so appreciative to the Gannett foundation (for) looking at our project as worthy," Deskur said.

The park will feature attractions that focus on the seven subject areas of lunar science and astronomy, earth science and green infrastructure, physics, energy and alternatives, math, challenge course, and art and sculpture.

An atom climber and slide will help teach park-goers about lunar science and astronomy, while a zip-line, see-saw and pulley ride will offer lessons in physics.

Park fundraisers had to match a $200,000 Consolidated Funding Application grant from New York State before work could begin. The USA Today Network grant is the largest the science center has received thus far.

The new grant puts the current budget over $465,000. The park has a total price tag of $535,000.

A majority of the work in the fall will be on the grounds, Deskur said, with construction on the actual structure of the park beginning in the spring of 2018.

“Later in the spring we should actually have something people will see as a play thing,” Deskur said.